


Ode to Vertigo

by lq_traintracks (lumosed_quill)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/F, Hogwarts Eighth Year, Kissing, Mention of sex, Poetry, Spin the Bottle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-01
Updated: 2019-09-01
Packaged: 2020-10-05 00:28:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20479976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lumosed_quill/pseuds/lq_traintracks
Summary: Pansy's not supposed to taste like ambrosia; vertigo isn't supposed to be sweet like this.





	Ode to Vertigo

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Firewhiskey Fic's August 2019 edition! Prompts used were: **Hermione Granger, The Restricted Section, Detention, Time Turner, Spin the Bottle.** (Drunken, unedited version on the comm at DW!)

In her laugh, claws;  
A fifty foot drop from a dangling cliff.  
She drips ruby words from lips stained  
black-cherry, taking them down,  
one by one.  
_Us._  
Taking us down, Hermione thinks  
as she observes Parkinson’s wit,  
a train through an unlit tunnel,  
all sound and exhaust,  
forward thrust; no parry  
in her attack; only slice, gouge;  
Only the blood of her wine sloshing  
in her glass, her eyes wobbly with drink,  
her words cut from sackcloth,   
black as pearls.

The bottle spins,  
a whirligig, a Time Turner  
bringing her back to before  
she made her parents forget,  
wiping the mantelpiece clean  
of her own dust;  
They never had a daughter   
so bright she made Venus shrink  
and Athena cower  
and monsters shred like parchment,  
and sometimes with only her words too.  
They have that in common:  
Words like wands, a chorus  
of incantations delivered cold,  
indiscriminate, like an avalanche  
bearing down, obliterating into blank white  
everything objectionable.

They have this in common: the feathered cut.

The bottle stops on Neville.  
Pansy is the first to cite his every shortcoming,  
his utter incompatibility with Padma,  
the spinner, the one whom he’s meant to kiss.  
Pansy tears him asunder, laughs  
into her wine glass:  
_Wouldn’t know how to kiss a girl  
if there’d been a NEWT on it.  
Fucking Troll out, he would have._  
How many glasses now?  
She's deep into it, Hermione thinks.  
Pour after pour, like tonic down her throat;  
Her top has slithered off her shoulder,  
a snakeskin sloughing.  
Underneath, she shines.   
That shoulder, pink,  
Angelic dirty flower, iris,  
Petals taking rain like lips.

No one should look so pretty  
while being so vile.

Eighth year, supposed to be their salvation  
yet Parkinson’s had more detentions than not.  
She fucked a boy   
in the restricted section of the library,  
or so the rumour goes.  
No word on the boy  
though names have flown  
around corners, through chimneys,  
behind hands, eyes flitting over to her  
even as later it’s _Oh Pansy, your hair looks LOVELY, darling!_  
She’s no one’s darling now.  
Hermione’s seen her: alone, book open, lip bit.  
Curled into a chair like a child,  
twirling a quill, looking lost.  
_What the bloody hell are YOU looking at?_  
Flung, like fishing line, looking for bait  
across empty water,  
empty rooms,  
singing a note like _please_,  
Like a hallelujah in rewind,  
like _save me_: Em Evas.

Hermione sees it now, that look,  
disguised as a Fury, come to slay you  
for being mortal:  
The bottle has stilled.

‘Of course. Bloody Granger.’  
But this seems all she’s capable of.  
Hardly worthy, this fool of a foe.  
This girl in plaid socks,  
This… parting of lips,  
A tiny lick of them.  
Almost imperceptible.

_She’s vile,_ Hermione tells herself—  
as she crosses the space,  
sinks her hand into that bob of black hair,  
Egyptian silk, mad dreams’ worth,   
curling against her knuckles.

Their mouths meet,  
and Pansy doesn’t breathe.  
Flashing rose neon,  
this pulse between them,  
all bloodborne and toxic and golden  
like a violin string vibrating against the air.  
It goes beyond kissing:  
They unleash _demons_.  
They move secrets and make words flesh.  
They speak in tongues, over balconies,  
Waterfalls, everything steep and fraught.  
They bridge one another,  
hands gripping tighterthantight,  
swept through with halting breaths,  
breathed in unison, counterpoint,  
unison again.

They part regretfully,  
magic unfurled between them  
lying in pools of weak light,  
one undone by the other.

Pansy’s not supposed to taste like ambrosia,  
like the swift hand of forgiveness  
rushing her body, the fade of time  
corroding the rules between them.  
Vertigo isn’t supposed to be sweet like this,  
like tilting—harsh and ecstatic—into chaos.

She just wanted to shut her up for fuck’s sake.

Watching Pansy blink—the black of her eyes  
all sooty and soft—  
shouldn’t feel like Apparition,  
a side-along into new territory,  
no cliffs in sight,  
or at least the kind  
you run at  
with wings opening at your back:

Falling up.


End file.
